


No One to Fall Back On

by Zoadgo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Episode 9, Emotional Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Exodus ship fell too fast. The falling wasn't the issue, it never is. It was the stopping, the meeting with the Earth in a fiery crash. In the span of seconds Clarke had gone from excited to concerned, to destroyed. But Bellamy is there to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One to Fall Back On

Clarke is broken. She falls to her knees in front of Bellamy, the weight of loss physically forcing her to the ground. The explosion isn’t even that loud from where they are, but it deafens her all the same. The fires burning miles away scorch their way into her soul, burning out the happiness and joy. Tears pour down her face as she watches the glow of her mother’s funeral pyre.

She doesn’t feel when Bellamy places his hand on her shoulder, doesn’t feel when he retracts it hesitantly. She doesn’t notice him taking a seat beside her. Clarke is trapped in that moment, the moment where her mother was so close, and then far too close too quickly.

Bellamy tries to reach her, but he can’t. He sees her slipping farther away from reality, drawing back into herself. He knows how tempting it can be, but he can’t let her run away like that. She wouldn’t let him run. 

He doubts a hug will be any more effective than the hand on her shoulder was, much as he yearns to draw her into his arms and hold her until the tears cease to flow from her eyes. But her tears are already slowing, eyes bright with pain glazing over to resemble those of a sleepwalker, open but unseeing. He grabs her shoulders harshly, making a mental note to apologize tomorrow, and places himself directly in front of her.

“Listen to me, Clarke, you need to stay with me. Okay? I know it hurts, but you can’t run away. We need you, and we need you thinking. Hell, I need you. You have to come back to me. Just say something, anything.” Desperation begins to leak into his voice as she continues to stare at his face without actually looking at him at all.

“Clarke, princess, I know it hurts. I’ve already said that, but I know. I lost my mom too, remember?” He remembers, as clearly as if it was yesterday. He’ll always remember. He clears his throat before continuing on, “It feels like you’re all alone, right? You’ve just had the most important thing in the world ripped away from you, and it feels like there’s no way you can face the world without it. Because no matter what you did in the past, she was there for you. There to support you, to fix your mistakes, to help you do better and be better. But now… Everything falls on you.”

He still feels it, the weight of having no one to fall back on, of being the one that someone has to rely on. Sometimes he feels like the weight of his own decisions is too much for him, and that adding Octavia’s problems will surely break him. But it doesn’t, and that’s what he has to make Clarke understand.

“You’ve done it all before, though. You’ve done amazing things with no support from anyone except yourself. Hell, with people actively trying to impede you. But you did it all, you saved Jasper, you saved Finn, you were an ambassador to the Grounders. You’ve done so much, and you will do even more. But… that doesn’t mean anything to you right now. I can tell you how amazing and strong you are until I’m blue in the face, but it means nothing. Because you just lost your mother.”

He gets a shaky nod in reply, more tears gathering in Clarke’s eyes, and Bellamy knows that he’s won. She won’t shut down now. Grieving is fine, encouraged, actually. So he tentatively puts a hand on her shoulder again, an offer of comfort if she should so desire it. She lets out a sob from deep within her, a sob that Bellamy remembers feeling many times, and throws herself into his arms. 

He holds her and whispers to her, telling her about losing his mother, about his life with and without her, about nothing in particular. He doesn’t know how much she hears, but he tells her everything anyway. In the light of early dawn, she stops sobbing and he runs out of things to say. But he feels lighter than he has since his mother was floated, as if telling Clarke about it had shared some of that burden while allowing her to share her own burdens with him. And, most importantly, Clarke is no longer broken.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is super short because I wrote it after a 10.5 hour shift while I was doing a three hour order for my own business, but I hope you enjoy it! It's also the closest I get to writing fluff, apparently. Once again [coldsaturn](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com) is beautiful and checked this over for me~
> 
> Talk at me [on tumblr!](http://randommaces.tumblr.com) I promise I don't bite unless you're into that ;)


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